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Teen Arrested for Writing Threatening Letter Over Christmas Lights

The many Christmas light fights across America we have been documenting include a minor skirmish in the township of Elyria, Ohio where an elderly woman displaying a dozen strands of soft white and colored lights received a written threat about her display in mid-February. The writer of the threat has been identified and arrested by local police.

Rose Marie Oâ€™neal stays with her elderly mom to care for her and keep her company. This Christmas she was feeling extremely grateful for all of her blessings and strung Christmas lights across the bushes and trees in her motherâ€™s front yard.

â€œI just thought they were nice and I like looking at them, it reminds me of all the good things I have to be grateful about,â€ said a kind and warmhearted Rose Marie.

She continued turning the lights on past the holidays to break up the dreary winter nights.

She says she and her mother truly enjoyed looking at the beautiful, colorful display.

But in February someone left an extremely angry letter in the familyâ€™s mailbox.

According to Elyria Police, it read, â€œPlease take your d### Christmas lights down. Christmas and New Yearâ€™s have already passed and is no where near. Iâ€™m tired of seeinâ€™ that s###. Donâ€™t make me tell you again. Thanks n####.â€

â€œIâ€™m just shocked and the way they said it was just so mean and nasty,â€ said Rose Marie. The family doesnâ€™t want any trouble but they also feel they should be permitted to have the lights on their property. The display is not overdone and consists of only about a dozen or so strands of soft white and colorful lights. Rose Marie says if anyone had asked her politely she wouldâ€™ve absolutely turned them off.

Police in Elyria, west of Cleveland, said a 15 year old girl was charged with disorderly conduct after the neighbor told officers she was threatened by the letter allegedly written and left by the teen. Police Capt. Chris Costantino told the local newspaper that the teen “thought it was going to be funny, but after she saw it on the news, she realized it was not so funny.”